Howard  Taylor  Ricketts 


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LAWRENCE  J.  GUTTER 

Collecn'on  of  Chicogoono 

THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   ILLINOIS 
AT  CHICAGO 

The  University  Library 


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Howard  Taylor  Ricketts 
1871  —  1910 


Introduction 

Among  the  many  illustrious 
sons  of  Northwestern,  no  name  looms 
larger  than  that  of  Howard  Taylor  Ricketts. 
The  least  his  Medical  Alma  Mater  can  do 
is  to  perpetuate  his  memory  in  the  belief 
that  his  example  will  kindle  the  hearts  and 
the  minds  of  youth.  Society  needs  to  pre- 
serve and  uphold  highmindedness,  idealism, 
and  the  search  for  truth,  all  of  which 
Howard  Ricketts,  personified. 

Northwestern  University  has 
a  duty  to  perform  in  the  creation  of  a 
substantially  endowed  foundation  that  shall 
bear  his  name.  In  furtherance  of  the  pro- 
ject a  committee  has  been  formed  to  re- 
ceive contributions.  It  is  anticipated  that 
the  goal,  namely  $100,000  will  be  achieved 


within  a  reasonable  time.  All  funds  re- 
ceived will  be  deposited  with  the  Trustees 
of  Northwestern  University  for  conserva- 
tion and  administration.  The  fund  will  be 
permanent  and  only  the  income  thereof 
will  be  utilized. 

As  one  who  knew  Howard 
Ricketts  rather  intimately  at  the  University 
of  Nebraska — it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  no  member  of  that  student  body  was 
more  beloved  or  represented  a  higher 
type  of  character  than  the  youth  who  was 
to  become  a  martyr  to  science. 

Irving  S.  Cutter 


HOWARD  TAYLOR  RICKETTS 

by  Charles  A.  Elliott 

HE  name  of  Howard  Taylor 
Ricketts,  Northwestern  Uni- 
versity Medical  School,  Glass 
of  1897,  is  inscribed  for  all 
time  on  the  honor  roll  of 
medical  achievement,  among  the  heroes  of 
medical  science. 

Doctor  Ricketts  was  born  on  a  farm  in 
Hancock  County,  Ohio,  on  February  9, 
1871.  When  he  was  two  years  of  age,  his 
father,  then  a  farmer,  moved  his  family 
to  Illinois,  and  later,  when  Ricketts  was 
seven,  settled  in  the  small  village  of  Fisher 
in  Champaign  County,  and  engaged  in  the 
grain  business.  They  were  religious  peo- 
ple, members  of  the  Methodist  Church, 
determined  to  give  their  children  a  college 
education,  and  Northwestern  University 
was  the  college  of  their  choice. 


Howard  Ricketts  attended  Northwest- 
ern Academy,  Evanston,  Illinois  in  prep- 
aration for  college,  and  while  there  first 
met  Myra  E.  Tubbs  of  Kirkwood,  Illinois 
— an  acquaintance  and  friendship  which 
finally  culminated  in  their  marriage  twelve 
years  later.  He  entered  Northwestern  Uni- 
versity in  1890.  He  was  a  superior  student ; 
was  admitted  to  the  Delta  Upsilon  Frater- 
nity; played  base-ball  on  the  University 
team ;  was  a  member  of  the  Glee  Club ;  and 
was  elected  manager  of  the  Syllabus,  an 
annual  University  publication.  The  family 
fortunes,  shaken  by  the  economic  depres- 
sion of  the  early  nineties,  made  it  necessary 
for  him  to  interrupt  his  college  career  at 
Northwestern  at  the  end  of  his  sophomore 
year,  and  with  his  family  he  moved  to 
Lincoln,  Nebraska,  where  he  entered  the 
University  of  Nebraska  as  a  Junior  in  the 
fall  of  1892.  His  unusual  earnestness  and 
ability  as  a  student  received  early  recogni- 
tion by  his  instructors  and  classmates  both 


at  Northwestern  and  Nebraska.  At  Lincoln 
his  intimate  friends  and  associates  included 
among  many  others,  John  J.  Pershing,  Ros- 
coe  Pound,  Dorothy  Ganfield,  Willa  Gather, 
and  Edward  P.  Elliott — all  sons  and  daugh- 
ters of  pioneers — forming  a  remarkable 
group  of  rather  serious  minded  young  peo- 
ple, as  such  things  are  judged  in  retrospect. 
About  this  time  reversals  in  the  family 
fortunes  of  the  Ricketts  family  were  ex- 
treme, and  henceforth  he  was  obliged  to 
support  himself  while  pursuing  his  studies. 
This  he  did  by  arduous  labor,  often  drudg- 
ery. During  the  next  few  years  he  was  com- 
pelled to  resort  to  many  expedients  to  earn 
the  funds  needed  to  carry  on ;  he  delivered 
newspapers,  sold  tickets  at  an  amusement 
park,  sang  in  the  church  choir,  taught 
zoology,  tutored,  and  slept  in  a  doctor's 
office,  answering  night  calls.  Under  Gus- 
tave  Ghanute,  pioneer  student  of  aviation, 
he  served  as  cook  and  general  handy-man 
on   an   expedition   to    the   Indiana   Dunes 


during  the  summer  of  1895.  The  expedition 
was  organized  for  the  purpose  of  studying 
the  principles  of  flight  by  heavier- than-air 
craft,  and  brought  about  the  fortuitous  as- 
sociation of  these  two  pioneers  in  divergent 
fields  of  scientific  endeavor. 

He  entered  Northwestern  University 
Medical  School  in  the  fall  of  1894,  graduat- 
ing in  1897.  The  senior  year  was  difiicult. 
The  strain  of  preparing  himself  for  the 
Cook  County  Hospital  examinations  un- 
dermined his  health.  He  was  frail,  over- 
worked, worn,  and  finally  was  compelled 
to  leave  school,  returning  at  the  end  of 
the  academic  year,  just  as  the  hospital  ex- 
aminations were  starting.  He  had  regained 
his  health  but  had  lost  much  time  from  his 
studies  and  against  his  better  judgment, 
was  induced  to  take  the  examinations  with- 
out further  preparation.  He  succeeded  in 
securing  one  of  the  coveted  appointments, 
thus  fulfilling  his  ambition.  Thereafter  his 
progress   in   medicine   was  uninterrupted. 


On  completing  his  intemeship  at  Cook 
County  Hospital  he  accepted  an  appoint- 
ment as  Fellow  in  Dermatology  at  Rush 
Medical  College.  In  1902  he  received  an  ap- 
pointment as  Instructor,  and  later  as  Asso- 
ciate Professor  in  Pathology  and  Bacteri- 
ology at  the  University  of  Chicago.  In  1910, 
the  year  of  his  death,  he  accepted  an  ap- 
pointment as  Professor  of  Pathology  at  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  which  post  he 
was  destined  never  to  fill. 

Throughout  his  career  Ricketts  exhib- 
ited unusual  traits  of  character.  He  had 
courage  and  an  unsw^erving  devotion  to  an 
ideal.  He  was  industrious,  able  to  work 
under  adverse  conditions,  and  never 
shirked  a  task,  no  matter  how  menial.  His 
natural  ability  for  scientific  investigation 
was  early  apparent  to  all  who  knew  him; 
he  was  a  clear  thinker  and  became  an 
investigator  of  the  first  rank. 

Within  a  life  span  of  but  thirty-nine  years, 
Ricketts,    supported    by    the    McCormick 


Institute  of  Infectious  Diseases  and  the 
University  of  Chicago,  and  encouraged  by 
his  friend,  Dr.  Ludvig  Hektoen,  added 
much  to  our  knowledge  of  infectious  dis- 
eases. Among  other  investigations  he  con- 
tributed an  exhaustive  study  of  blastomy- 
cosis, then  a  little  known  disease.  During 
the  course  of  this  investigation  he  inocu- 
lated himself  with  the  virus  of  this  disease. 
At  that  time  blastomycosis  was  assumed  to 
be  a  readily  controlled  infection  of  the 
skin  only.  He  developed  however,  a  gen- 
eralized infection,  a  serious  form  of  the 
disease,  now,  but  not  then,  recognized.  For- 
tunately he  recovered,  but  not  without 
grave  concern  to  his  colleagues. 

Ricketts  demonstrated  the  cause  and  in- 
dicated the  method  of  prevention  of  Rocky 
Mountain  Spotted  Fever,  a  virulent  disease 
then  prevalent  in  certain  mountainous  dis- 
tricts of  our  western  states.  He  proved  the 
transmission  of  the  virus  of  Spotted  Fever 
through   ticks,    commonly    found    in    great 


numbers  in  the  infested  valleys  of  Mon- 
tana, and  demonstrated  that  the  bite  of  the 
infected  adult  tick  conveyed  the  disease  to 
man.  The  tick  reaches  its  adult  stage  only 
during  the  spring  of  the  year.  The  hereto- 
fore unexplained  seasonal  prevalence  of  the 
disease  in  man  was  thus  clearly  elucidated. 
The  genetic  name,  "Rickettsia"  is  now  ap- 
plied to  this  and  similar  organisms  causing 
a  number  of  infections  to  which  man  is 
susceptible.  Because  of  certain  peculiari- 
ties, which  Ricketts  believed  Rocky  Moun- 
tain Spotted  Fever  had  in  common  with 
Typhus  Fever,  his  interest  in  the  latter  was 
stimulated. 

Typhus  fever  is  a  devastating  world 
scourge  of  poverty,  filth,  and  war,  which 
within  historic  times  has  claimed  its  mil- 
lions. He  determined  to  investigate  typhus, 
then  endemic  in  Mexico,  and  in  December 
1909,  journeyed  to  Mexico  City,  prepared 
to  study  its  cause  and  mode  of  transmission. 
He  was  accompanied  by  Dr.   Russell  M. 


Wilder,  now  of  the  Mayo  Clinic,  as  a  volun- 
tary assistant.  As  a  result  of  his  labors  the 
mode  of  spread  of  typhus  fever  from  man 
to  man  by  way  of  the  body  louse  (pedicu- 
losis vestimentorum)  was  demonstrated  in- 
controvertably.  In  addition  he  found  an 
organism  of  the  Rickettsia  group  in  the 
blood  of  typhus  fever  patients  and  in  the 
fluids  of  infected  body  lice. 

His  work  concluded  and  his  reports 
written — another  milestone  was  erected  in 
the  progress  of  medical  science.  Ricketts 
unfortunately  contracted  typhus  fever,  and 
died  of  its  ravages  on  May  3,  1910,  a  sacri- 
fice to  human  welfare.  On  May  sixth,  three 
days  following  his  death,  an  unsigned  edi- 
torial appeared  in  the  Chicago  Tribune^  in 
part,  as  follows: 

"The  death  of  Dr.  Howard  T,  Ricketts 
adds  another  name  to  the  long  honor  roll  of 
science.  The  endless  warfare  that  mankind 
has  fought  against  ignorance  and  its  childy 
disease,  has  claimed  another  victim,  but  the 


fight  goes  on.  Doctor  Ricketts  left  his  un- 
finished investigations  to  his  fellow  work- 
ers in  the  field  of  medical  research.  But  he 
left  something  much  more  precious  to  his 
fellow  men — the  example  of  a  high  courage 
and  devotion  in  the  cause  of  humanity. 
Doctor  Ricketts  died  on  the  firing  line  of 
human  progress,  and  it  is  inspiring  to  be- 
lieve, as  we  may,  that  he  did  not  die  in  vain. 
Mankind  is  richer  for  his  living  and  nobler 
for  his  dying." 

The  results  of  Doctor  Ricketts'  investi- 
gations pointed  the  way  to  the  control  of 
Rocky  Mountain  Spotted  Fever  of  our 
Western  states,  and  were  instrumental  in 
stimulating  the  delousing  activities  of  the 
armies  during  the  World  War,  preventing 
the  spread  of  typhus  fever  which  had  al- 
ready made  its  appearance  and  which 
otherwise  would  have  proved  disastrous. 

Northwestern  is  proud  of  this  illustrious 
son  whose  achievements,  although  pre- 
maturely interrupted,  have  meant  so  much 
to  humanity. 


RICKETTS  FOUNDATION  COMMITTEE 


Charles  A.  Elliott 

8  S.  Michigan  Ave. 

Chicago,  111. 

John  A.  Wolfer  Arthur  A.  Anderson 

8  S.  Michigan  Ave.  135  S.  La  Salle  St. 

Chicago,  111.  Chicago,  111. 


Irving  S.   Cutter 

303  E.  Chicago  Ave. 

Chicago,  111. 

Charles  H.  Mayo 

Mayo  Clinic 
Rochester,  Minn. 


S.  Marx  White 
1009  Nicollet  Ave. 
Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Allen  B.  Kanavel 

1015  S.  El  Molino  Ave. 

Pasadena,  Cal. 


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